Controversial Mississippi Prosecutor Recuses Himself from Further Involvement in Curtis Flowers’ Case

After hav­ing been rebuked by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2019 for his pat­tern of racial­ly biased jury selec­tion in the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tions of Curtis Flowers and sued in fed­er­al court to bar future race-based jury strikes, Mississippi pros­e­cu­tor Doug Evans has vol­un­tar­i­ly recused him­self from future involve­ment in Flowers’ case. 

Evans has been the dri­ving force in Flowers’ case for more than 20 years, per­son­al­ly pros­e­cut­ing Flowers (pic­tured, right, with defense co-coun­sel Henderson Hill) six times for a 1996 quadru­ple mur­der in Winona, Mississippi. Flowers’ first three con­vic­tions and death sen­tences were over­turned by the Mississippi Supreme Court as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, with the court twice find­ing that Evans had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly used his dis­cre­tionary strikes against black jurors on the basis of race. Flowers’ fourth and fifth tri­als — the only tri­als in which more than one black juror was empan­eled — end­ed in hung juries. In Flowers’ sixth tri­al, a jury of 11 white jurors and one black juror con­vict­ed him and sen­tenced him to death. 

The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019, focus­ing on Evans’ pat­tern of racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry jury selec­tion. American Public Media Reports’ pod­cast In the Dark ana­lyzed 26 years of jury strike records and found that Evans’ office had struck black peo­ple from juries at near­ly 4.5 times the rate it struck white peo­ple. Over the course of the five Flowers tri­als for which data was avail­able, Evans vol­un­tar­i­ly accept­ed only one black juror, strik­ing or attempt­ing to strike every oth­er black juror until he ran out of peremp­to­ry strikes. The Court vacat­ed Flowers’ sixth con­vic­tion on June 21, 2019 in a 7 – 2 deci­sion. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writ­ing for the major­i­ty, wrote, ​“Equal jus­tice under law requires a crim­i­nal tri­al free of racial dis­crim­i­na­tion in the jury selec­tion.” Kavanaugh wrote that Evans’ ​“relent­less, deter­mined effort to rid the jury of black indi­vid­u­als … strong­ly sug­gests that the State want­ed to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as pos­si­ble, and ide­al­ly before an all-white jury.”

Evans’ recusal motion, filed in the Montgomery County Circuit Court on January 6, 2020, made no men­tion of the his­to­ry of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and racial bias in the case. Evans said that he ​“remain[ed] con­fi­dent in both the inves­ti­ga­tion and the jury ver­dicts” in the case, but had nev­er­the­less con­clud­ed that his ​“con­tin­ued involve­ment will pre­vent the fam­i­lies from obtain­ing jus­tice and from the defen­dant being held respon­si­ble for his actions. It is for these rea­sons,” he wrote, ​“that I vol­un­tar­i­ly recuse my office from fur­ther involve­ment.” Evans asked the tri­al court to appoint the Mississippi Attorney General’s office to pros­e­cute the case.

Flowers’ lawyer Robert McDuff of the Mississippi Center for Justice issued a sharply word­ed state­ment in response to Evans’ recusal. ​“Doug Evans had no busi­ness stay­ing on this case,” McDuff said, ​“and we are pleased he recused him­self. We look for­ward to what we hope will be an impar­tial review of this case by the new Attorney General of Mississippi. As the tri­al judge indi­cat­ed when grant­i­ng bail, the evi­dence of inno­cence has become even more clear since the last tri­al. There is no rea­son to con­tin­ue wast­ing tax­pay­er mon­ey and putting every­one through a sev­enth tri­al. Curtis Flowers is inno­cent. This mis­guid­ed pros­e­cu­tion has been plagued from the begin­ning by mis­con­duct and racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, and it is time to bring it to an end.”

Flowers was released on bail on December 16, 2019 after spend­ing 23 years in jail, most of that time on death row. Evans had ini­tial­ly hint­ed that he would try Flowers a sev­enth time but had not for­mal­ly announced a deci­sion. That deci­sion will now be made by the Mississippi Attorney General.